Dear D
Thanks for your note. We have never really sat down and had a thorough debate about Brexit. So here is my case, in response to yours.
At her press conference to announce the draft agreement with the EU, and again at the CBI today, the Prime Minister focused on immigration and ‘control over our own borders.’ Immigrants have been at the heart of the Brexit argument. Immigrants, who ‘steal our jobs’.
This is a false argument, on four counts.
First, there is no evidence that immigrants steal ‘our’ jobs. In fact, the evidence from a wide variety of sources (here is a briefing paper from the OECD), is the reverse. Immigration creates a net benefit for the UK economy.
Second, we can’t escape our demographics. Like many countries in Europe, Scotland has an ageing population. We need young migrants to contribute to the economy, to pay the taxes that pay the pensions, and to fill the jobs, including the many caring professions, that our economy needs. You have seen the effect that the threat of Brexit has had on the recruitment of nurses in England; why on earth would we want that to happen in Scotland?
Third, the EU has strong borders, and border controls. It’s not a free-for-all for immigration, as the thousands of young men and women who die each year in the Mediterranean demonstrate. These migrants, escaping wars and economic misery, die trying to get through the many barriers that the EU has erected.
And finally, on what moral or ethical grounds can a person in Scotland say that there should be stiffer controls on migration? Who were the great migrants of the British Isles a century ago? Who, proportionally, provided more men and women for the Colonial Service than any other country in the British Isles? We are all immigrants in Scotland, and we are all related to emigrants. Do we really believe that the Scots who went to the USA did not contribute to the economy there? On what basis can one argue that the Scot who went to the USA and Canada helped build those nations, while the Senegalese or Syrian who comes to Scotland is nothing but a drain on our resources?
And if we were morally or ethically consistent in these arguments then we would follow them through. We would insist that the 300,000 UK citizens in Spain should return immediately to the UK because ‘they are a drain on the economy’. But we don’t. We call them ‘expats’ not ‘immigrants’, and we hint at their slightly glamorous life in the sun. Now put yourself in Aleppo, or Ouagadougou and imagine that your daughter lives in Glasgow and works as a nurse; wouldn’t you feel the same, that she was contributing to her host country?
There is a moral inconsistency in the pro-Brexit argument. Because it’s based on the false premise that ‘immigration’ is bad.
It’s the phrase favoured by the Daily Mail; the ‘faceless bureaucrats’ of Brussels have told us we can’t have bendy bananas or straight cucumbers or whatever.
This part of the Brexit debate is posited as though the UK can simply escape the clutches of Brussels. It is even posited as ‘escape from Brussels…so that we can enjoy the freedom of World Trade Organisation rules’. Gosh! Are the WTO bureaucrats so much better? So much less ‘faceless’?
But neither of these points is valid. Because this part of the debate is not about the bureaucrats. It's about governance.
Proposing that the UK will be ‘free’ after Brexit is false. Britain, like most countries, is linked into a huge, complex, web of governance. At the top of the tree is the UN: the UK is signatory to a wide range of UN treaties on topics ranging from human rights to the complexities of the International Telecommunications Union. Next are the INGOs; so the UK is a signatory to the conventions of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, meaning for example that we treat prisoners of war with respect. Then we are (until March 29th, unless the Tory Party comes to its senses) members of the EU so we have a layer of governance there. Then we have Westminster, the, er, mother of parliaments. Then you have the Scottish Parliament which, until Brexit showed that the Sewell convention has no legal force, appeared to govern us. And then Fife Council and then your local Community Council.
These are all layers of governance. They all perform different, sometimes overlapping, functions, and they all have rules, regulations and bureaucrats, faceless or otherwise. Many are essential; I’m sure that you would not want us to pull out of the ICRC Convention on the treatment of POWs, and equally sure that you would not want us to withdraw from the UN treaties on the use of child labour. Equally, I’m sure that you need your local council to sweep the streets and provide subsidised transport for older people.
So the Brexit debate is not a choice between ‘freedom’ and ‘Brussels’. It's about the mixture of layers of governance that the voters want. The effect of Brexit will not be to remove the EU rules, in the same way as it will not remove the UN treaties. Even if Brexit occurs, we will still have to abide by the rules of the EU because the EU is our largest trading partner. So if the EU insists that widgets made in Scotland are 14mm long then that is how we will have to make them. This is a debate about governance, about a specific layer of the many layers of governance that control what we do.
Now you have to convince me that the EU layer is worse than, say, the UN layer, or worse than the Fife Council layer. In all of those cases we (a) contribute cash to make that layer of governance work and (b) have a corresponding say in that body’s decisions. My view is that the EU layer provides far more positives than negatives; it encourages us to limit pollution and the damage of climate change, it helps build roads and bridges in Scotland, it allows us to be part of a 500m-consumer group that can face down Google and Facebook, it is dramatically positive for education and especially higher education, it is a significant funder of research in areas such as biochemistry, where the US and the Chinese would otherwise streak ahead of us, and it is one of the funders of one of your favourite engineering projects, the Falkirk Wheel …
At a more personal level, I have benefitted hugely from the UK’s membership of the EU, and, as a migrant have – I hope – contributed to the country that took me in. Above all, I have not had to send my children to another war in Europe but instead have been able to watch them benefit from the education systems of three EU member states.
That's why - had I been given a vote - I would have voted to Remain. And why I'm doing whatever I can to get the mess of a mother of Parliaments at Westminster to reconsider Brexit and to opt instead for continuing membership of the European Union.
Thanks for your note. We have never really sat down and had a thorough debate about Brexit. So here is my case, in response to yours.
Migration: not the real argument
At her press conference to announce the draft agreement with the EU, and again at the CBI today, the Prime Minister focused on immigration and ‘control over our own borders.’ Immigrants have been at the heart of the Brexit argument. Immigrants, who ‘steal our jobs’.
This is a false argument, on four counts.
First, there is no evidence that immigrants steal ‘our’ jobs. In fact, the evidence from a wide variety of sources (here is a briefing paper from the OECD), is the reverse. Immigration creates a net benefit for the UK economy.
Second, we can’t escape our demographics. Like many countries in Europe, Scotland has an ageing population. We need young migrants to contribute to the economy, to pay the taxes that pay the pensions, and to fill the jobs, including the many caring professions, that our economy needs. You have seen the effect that the threat of Brexit has had on the recruitment of nurses in England; why on earth would we want that to happen in Scotland?
Third, the EU has strong borders, and border controls. It’s not a free-for-all for immigration, as the thousands of young men and women who die each year in the Mediterranean demonstrate. These migrants, escaping wars and economic misery, die trying to get through the many barriers that the EU has erected.
And finally, on what moral or ethical grounds can a person in Scotland say that there should be stiffer controls on migration? Who were the great migrants of the British Isles a century ago? Who, proportionally, provided more men and women for the Colonial Service than any other country in the British Isles? We are all immigrants in Scotland, and we are all related to emigrants. Do we really believe that the Scots who went to the USA did not contribute to the economy there? On what basis can one argue that the Scot who went to the USA and Canada helped build those nations, while the Senegalese or Syrian who comes to Scotland is nothing but a drain on our resources?
And if we were morally or ethically consistent in these arguments then we would follow them through. We would insist that the 300,000 UK citizens in Spain should return immediately to the UK because ‘they are a drain on the economy’. But we don’t. We call them ‘expats’ not ‘immigrants’, and we hint at their slightly glamorous life in the sun. Now put yourself in Aleppo, or Ouagadougou and imagine that your daughter lives in Glasgow and works as a nurse; wouldn’t you feel the same, that she was contributing to her host country?
There is a moral inconsistency in the pro-Brexit argument. Because it’s based on the false premise that ‘immigration’ is bad.
Faceless Bureaucrats
It’s the phrase favoured by the Daily Mail; the ‘faceless bureaucrats’ of Brussels have told us we can’t have bendy bananas or straight cucumbers or whatever.
This part of the Brexit debate is posited as though the UK can simply escape the clutches of Brussels. It is even posited as ‘escape from Brussels…so that we can enjoy the freedom of World Trade Organisation rules’. Gosh! Are the WTO bureaucrats so much better? So much less ‘faceless’?
But neither of these points is valid. Because this part of the debate is not about the bureaucrats. It's about governance.
Proposing that the UK will be ‘free’ after Brexit is false. Britain, like most countries, is linked into a huge, complex, web of governance. At the top of the tree is the UN: the UK is signatory to a wide range of UN treaties on topics ranging from human rights to the complexities of the International Telecommunications Union. Next are the INGOs; so the UK is a signatory to the conventions of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, meaning for example that we treat prisoners of war with respect. Then we are (until March 29th, unless the Tory Party comes to its senses) members of the EU so we have a layer of governance there. Then we have Westminster, the, er, mother of parliaments. Then you have the Scottish Parliament which, until Brexit showed that the Sewell convention has no legal force, appeared to govern us. And then Fife Council and then your local Community Council.
These are all layers of governance. They all perform different, sometimes overlapping, functions, and they all have rules, regulations and bureaucrats, faceless or otherwise. Many are essential; I’m sure that you would not want us to pull out of the ICRC Convention on the treatment of POWs, and equally sure that you would not want us to withdraw from the UN treaties on the use of child labour. Equally, I’m sure that you need your local council to sweep the streets and provide subsidised transport for older people.
So the Brexit debate is not a choice between ‘freedom’ and ‘Brussels’. It's about the mixture of layers of governance that the voters want. The effect of Brexit will not be to remove the EU rules, in the same way as it will not remove the UN treaties. Even if Brexit occurs, we will still have to abide by the rules of the EU because the EU is our largest trading partner. So if the EU insists that widgets made in Scotland are 14mm long then that is how we will have to make them. This is a debate about governance, about a specific layer of the many layers of governance that control what we do.
Now you have to convince me that the EU layer is worse than, say, the UN layer, or worse than the Fife Council layer. In all of those cases we (a) contribute cash to make that layer of governance work and (b) have a corresponding say in that body’s decisions. My view is that the EU layer provides far more positives than negatives; it encourages us to limit pollution and the damage of climate change, it helps build roads and bridges in Scotland, it allows us to be part of a 500m-consumer group that can face down Google and Facebook, it is dramatically positive for education and especially higher education, it is a significant funder of research in areas such as biochemistry, where the US and the Chinese would otherwise streak ahead of us, and it is one of the funders of one of your favourite engineering projects, the Falkirk Wheel …
At a more personal level, I have benefitted hugely from the UK’s membership of the EU, and, as a migrant have – I hope – contributed to the country that took me in. Above all, I have not had to send my children to another war in Europe but instead have been able to watch them benefit from the education systems of three EU member states.
That's why - had I been given a vote - I would have voted to Remain. And why I'm doing whatever I can to get the mess of a mother of Parliaments at Westminster to reconsider Brexit and to opt instead for continuing membership of the European Union.
